Title

Authors

Files

Description

Choosing the Jesus Way uncovers the history and religious experiences of the first American Indian converts to Pentecostalism. Focusing on the Assemblies of God denomination, the story begins in 1918, when white missionaries fanned out from the South and Midwest to convert Native Americans in the West and other parts of the country. Drawing on new approaches to the global history of Pentecostalism, Angela Tarango shows how converted indigenous leaders eventually transformed a standard Pentecostal theology of missions in ways that reflected their own religious struggles and advanced their sovereignty within the denomination.

Key to the story is the Pentecostal "indigenous principle," which encourages missionaries to train local leadership in hopes of creating an indigenous church rooted in the culture of the missionized. In Tarango's analysis, the indigenous principle itself was appropriated by the first generation of Native American Pentecostals, who transformed it to critique aspects of the missionary project and to argue for greater religious autonomy. More broadly, Tarango scrutinizes simplistic views of religious imperialism and demonstrates how religious forms and practices are often mutually influenced in the American experience.

ISBN

9781469612928

Publication Date

2014

Publisher

The University of North Carolina Press

City

Chapel Hill

Keywords

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities | Religion

Table of Contents

Introduction: Native Pentecostals, the indigenous principle, and religious practice -- The indigenous principle : Pentecostal missionary theology and the birth of the Assemblies of God's Home Missions to American Indians -- The indigenous principle on the ground : American Indians, white missionaries, and the building of missions -- The lived indigenous principle : new understandings of Pentecostal healing, Native culture, and Pentecostal Indian identity -- Institutionalizing the indigenous principle : the American Indian College and Mesa View Assembly of God -- The fight for national power and the indigenous principle : the development of the Indian representative position and the Native American fellowship -- Epilogue: American Indian Pentecostals in the twenty-first century.

Recommended Citation

Tarango, A. (2014). Choosing the Jesus way: American Indian Pentecostals and the fight for the indigenous principle. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.